Gold and silver are lower again today with short term momentum traders taking advantage of recent weakness and capping of the gold price at record nominal highs. Options expiry often sees gold and silver prices fall but recover sharply within days of expiry and this is likely to be the pattern again after yesterday's expiration.

Market participants continue to underestimate the many risks and challenges facing the tentative economic recovery in hugely debt-laden western economies.

Absolutely nothing has changed with regard to the fundamentals of the gold market. The gold bears' most recent prediction of an end to the gold bull market was the non-evidence based, simplistic assertion that the increase in investment demand seen in 2010 and recent years was not sustainable. They asserted that falling investment demand would see liquidations in the bullion market and falling prices.

They are being proved wrong once again. Indeed, safe haven demand looks set to continue and may accelerate due to increased geopolitical instability in oil-producing regions, the effects of the Japanese crisis on the yen and the global economy and the unresolved European sovereign debt crisis.

The scale of the Japanese nuclear crisis has been downplayed from the beginning but the terrible reality of the extent of nuclear contamination of land and sea is gradually coming to light. Nuclear radiation has now been detected across Asia in China, the Koreas and as far away as the Philippines and Vietnam.

Asian households have been buying gold and silver bullion (primarily as a hedge against inflation) in record amounts in recent months and the natural and nuclear disaster in Japan will likely contribute to continuing safe haven demand.

Gold in Chinese Renminbi (per Gram) - Shanghai Gold Exchange – SHGD

Japanese premiums for gold bars remain at 3-year highs as Japan has seen safe haven demand for gold surge in the wake of their crisis. Japan looks set to become a net importer from a net exporter of gold. Indeed, Japanese demand on concerns about their bond market (see news) and currency debasement is another catalyst for gold to reach much higher prices in the coming months and years.

Asian demand is especially strong in the increasingly important China. The Chinese strong cultural affinity and love affair with gold (primarily due to a distrust of Chinese paper money) shows no signs of abating. Indeed, it may be accelerating as was seen in the recent figures from the Shanghai Gold Exchange and customs in China and now reports (including from CNTV – the national TV station of the People's Republic of China) of shortages of raw gold or unrefined gold.

China, now the largest producer of gold in the world is seeing its gold mines struggle to cater for surging Chinese demand.

The raw gold trade has been growing by up to 30% per annum and demand has leapt in recent months leading to a developing raw gold shortage in China. The industry in China expects only 27,000 tonnes of raw gold can be delivered this year. That is way below the estimated demand of 50,000 tonnes.

A potential supply shortage of 23,000 tonnes of gold is a large amount of gold in the small gold bullion market which is tiny versus equity, bond and derivative markets. It is infinitesimal when compared to the $4,000 billion a day traded in currency markets.

Indeed, this figure is difficult to fathom given that total above ground gold supply is only some 160,000 tonnes.

Some 'experts' have been calling gold a speculative bubble without establishing the facts since 2007. By discouraging the public from owning gold and discouraging even a small allocation or diversification, they have put their readers and the wider public at risk of further financial loss. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing and uninformed and biased advice will continue to lead to the public becoming impoverished financially.

News

(Bloomberg) -- Goldman Says 'Good Time' for Producers to Begin Gold HedgingGoldman Sachs Group Inc. said it is a "good time" for gold producers to begin "scaled-up" hedging of forward production, particularly for next year and beyond. Gold prices will increase this year and peak in 2012, the bank said today in an e-mailed report.

(Barrons) -- Analysts See Reasons For Gold, Silver To Head Higher This WeekBob Chapman, editor of the International Forecaster newsletter, is asserting that silver and gold prices are dropping today largely because options are expiring on gold and silver futures contracts.

"That can make the prices go down. If there are a lot of long options and they go below those prices, the banks don't have to pay-off," he said in an interview. "You can almost plan on the attack each month as gold and options contracts come up."

He doesn't see any other major reasons behind the fall-off by spot gold and silver prices on Monday. The SPDR Gold ETF (GLD) is down 0.5% and the iShares Silver Trust ETF (SLV) has slumped some 0.3% so far.

But pressure is also likely coming from potential delays in the restart of auto production in Japan and by some hints of tighter monetary policy, says MF Global's Tom Pawlicki in a note to clients today.

"We still lean positive in gold, but we're unsure about the potential downside given the hawkish comments from Fed's (Charles) Plosser on Friday," he wrote.

The Philadelphia Fed president gave a bullish sermon in New York at the end of last week. "If this forecast is broadly accurate, then monetary policy will have to reverse course in the not-too-distant future and begin to remove the massive amount of accommodation it has supplied to the economy," Plosser said.

But analyst Pawlicki believes gold and silver could move higher later in the week as a rush of new economic data is released, ramping up to Thursday's PMI and Friday's non-farm payrolls and ISM survey.

"The numbers will capture data for March, which may begin to reflect the adverse effects from the March 11th earthquake in Japan," he added. "Potential support will also come from uncertainty tied to European debt and to the Middle East."

(CNBC) -- Silver Is Way Undervalued Compared With GoldMother nature, one could say, is the ultimate asset allocator over a long enough time span. Going by that notion, silver is very undervalued versus gold.

Silver is about 16 times as plentiful in the earth's crust as gold, according to John Stephenson, author of the "The Little Book of Commodity Investing."

Yet, the price of gold per ounce currently trades at about 38 times that of silver.

According to the basic laws of supply and demand, especially given that the two metals are quite similar, the price gap between the two metals should be much smaller.

"It basically has the same physical characteristics of gold as a store of value and it also has an industrial kicker," said Stephenson, a portfolio manager for FirstAsset Management in Canada. "For my money, the trade of the decade will be in silver. Gold was the best investment over the last decade, but in the future, silver will be the go-to investment for investors looking to ride out the current storms in the global economy."

Gold has jumped about five-fold in the last decade as investors flocked to the metal. They went there first for safety from two bear markets, but then for an inflation hedge as the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to zero.

Historically, gold sells for about 30 times the price of silver. Since gold is currently selling at about 38 times, silver is undervalued by about 27 percent and should be closer to $47 an ounce instead of $37.

Of course, gold will always be the more precious metal, not only because of its relative scarcity but because of its cultural significance around the globe.

Indeed, all the focus has been on gold over the last decade. The gold spot market is ten times bigger than the silver market and the SPDR Gold Trust ETF [GLD 138.54 -0.72 (-0.52%) ] has $55 billion in assets, compared to just $13 billion for the iShares Silver Trust [SLV 36.19 -0.20 (-0.55%)] .

"In a world where the amount of paper fiat currency is staggering and increasing as governments from U.S. to Europe keep printing, it may be time to start looking at the poor's man's gold," said Stephenson, who pointed out that while gold has exceeded its record price during the 1980s, silver is still way off the $68 per ounce level it reached during that time.

(Bloomberg) -- Commodity Gains May Exceed Forecast on Japan, Goldman SaysCommodities may rise more than estimated in the coming year because of tensions in the Middle East and Japan's earthquake and subsequent nuclear disaster, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said.

While the bank still predicts a 14.3 percent gain for the S&P GSCI Enhanced Commodity Index in the period, risk to the forecast is "substantially skewed to the upside," analysts including London-based Jeffrey Currie said in a report today. Energy is at "increasing risk" of outperforming industrial metals, and gold and agriculture have "further upside risk," they said.

"Unfolding events in the Middle East/North Africa and Japan have dramatically reshaped the risk profile across commodities," the analysts said. "In particular, ongoing physical disruptions to Libyan oil supply and increased Japanese hydrocarbon demand to compensate for nuclear outages have begun to further tighten global oil balances."

The S&P GSCI index has added 11 percent this year after gaining 12 percent in 2010. Cotton is up 37 percent this year, Brent crude oil has advanced 21 percent, silver is up 18 percent and tin has increased 16 percent.

Growth ConcernGoldman Sachs in February cut its forecast for 12-month returns on the S&P GSCI index from 18.6 percent as unrest in the Middle East and North Africa raised concern that global growth might slow.

Energy will return 15 percent in 12 months, while industrial metals may return 21 percent and precious metals will appreciate 13 percent, today's report shows. Gold will increase this year and peak in 2012, the bank said.

Goldman Sachs said it's "closely" watching developments in copper demand given the disaster in Japan and turbulence in the Middle East and North Africa. Rising energy prices may curb global growth and prompt monetary tightening, which would erode demand for industrial metals, the bank said.

Events in Japan "will likely soften metals balances given the hit to Japanese manufacturing capacity and the broader negative impact on global industry stemming from Japan's importance as a global parts supplier," Goldman Sachs said.

While a return of Chinese buyers and higher energy prices will probably support metals for now, "further upside is likely limited from current levels," the analysts said.

Thats what caught my eye too. I don't think total world production is that much (I think TWP issomewhere between 2400-4000 tons).That would definately make FT Knox supposed 8000 tons pitiful) If only it was that plentiful. The reporters have been missing a lot of decimal places lately.

In this market I have no idea. I do know that South Africas break even production cost is about $750 an ounce and are part of the gold suppression by the central banks. With that said I could call a bottom of about 800( PMs are not like paper and will always be worth something) bucks although there are some lower cost producers. At these prices gold could correct hard but I just do not see it with worldwide demand what it is. The only thing these idiots are doing by controling the price is allowing other countries like Iran, Russia, The Netherlands and China to add reserves on the cheap. If it ever breaks free of central bank control look out the sky is the limit but this is one of the most controlled market on the planet so its not real likely. They want you to put your money in their scam Ponzi system of stocks,bonds, banks and deposits so they can keep inflating and using your money for Corporate and Central bank benefit.. Buying gold is like a Giant Fuck YOU. They hate it because you are storing your weath and production in a form they cannot use. Because its an alternative form of money It keeps the sorry assed central bankstas and politicians in check. Just listen to CNBC trot out and talk about a gold crash every time it goes down 1%. A least China has the decency to tell there population to buy gold, but their motives are not pure. They are desperately wanting to replace the worlds reserve currency with their own and are trying to break the western worlds grip. All our politicians seem to want to do is help them with the endeavor.

It's a big one but I just couldn't help myself, as the actress said to the bishop...

'Fractional reserve money systems do not necessarily manifest themselves as a consequence of fiat based financial systems. When you save your money on deposit at the bank and the bank loans it out as a 25 year mortgage there is no way the bank can grant you instant access to your money simply because it doesn’t have the cash, only the security. Excessive withdrawals of deposits historically have always resulted in the forced sale of assets at fire sale prices to raise the cash needed to pay the withdrawals i.e. a classic bank run.

To counter this banks make an assessment of likely withdrawals over any given period and keep this sum on hand as reserves. If this assessment was say 10% of deposits then this would be the reserve requirement. This is a fractional reserve system and it exists with any business which promises long term investment with access to capital. The problem with a fractional reserve system under a gold standard is liquidity because the bank does have sufficient assets to cover the withdrawals but it can’t necessarily liquidate them quickly at fair market rates. The problem here is liquidity; it is entirely different under a gold standard than a fiat system.

For the purposes of this discussion we'll assume that 1oz of gold can be bought for $10.

Under a gold standard banks must collect money from savers which they can then lend for greater interest. With a reserve requirement of 10% as an example, for every $10 of deposits the bank can make loans of $9 whereas under a fiat system the bank can make loans of up to $90 and still comply with its reserve requirements.

You can see the problem. As soon as the bank makes a loan of $90 and that check is paid in to a receiving bank, the receiving bank will immediately demand payment of the check from the issuing bank so that it can itself make payments on its own account. The issuing bank in this case however has only $10 on deposit with which to make payment and is immediately insolvent. Time for TARP, QE2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and onward to ultimate failure...

Under a gold standard banks need to maintain accurate valuations of these assets on their books for their own well being in case they need to be liquidated. There is a constant and ongoing process of price discovery. Under a fiat system in which we have central banks capable of creating any quantity of new money, excessive withdrawals no longer require a forced sale or even a sale at all since these securities can now be used as collateral at any agreed price with a central bank that can simply create any quantity of money with which to buy it.

The result can only be a system which encourages excessively high valuations of securities classed as ‘held to maturity’ at prices intentionally designed by government to be fake. A government has no choice if it is to protect and promote its banking system. That’s what ‘mark to model’ pricing is; a governments' gift to its banking system to enable it to remain solvent so that it can ultimately sell it more debt.

Any system without real price discovery can only result in these securities being held at increasingly fraudulent and unrealistically high valuations by banks for years under the glaring gaze of regulators who are supposed to prevent it. That’s what subprime was. That’s how they make their bonuses.

What’s worse is that using our example, the receiving bank now has $90 of deposits on its books and can now make loans of up to $810 yet still comply with reserve requirements. It too will become insolvent when the checks are ultimately presented for payment requiring another bailout of this bank too.

Even Mb, the so called measure of the monetary base is not now indicative of the real value of real money because using our model, $90 of what is effectively bank deposits which are effectively counted as money, and everything bought with it still has a value of only 1 gold ounce.

This is what drives property prices higher through the increasing availability of bank credit. The problem is that we still only have $10 of savings in the form of deposits to fund it. It doesn’t matter what you call it or how frequently governments’ bailout the banking system, the problem must inevitably arise again and again as the bailouts become larger (and by multiples) and more frequent as a direct consequence of mathematics, not magic, bad luck or mismanagement. The gold price is not going down.

It is a mathematical fact that the first time banks incur losses or withdrawals someone needs (using our example) to find $800 for every $10 in deposits. That is a truly staggering quantity of currency required to be produced to keep the system of bank credit going. It should give you some idea of the extent of the inevitable contraction in credit and the losses that are yet to be incurred on residential and commercial property markets that rely on this system for funding.

We'd like to be clear. When we say $10 we mean $10 in real money. That (in this example) is 1 oz of gold priced at $10, not the massive quantities of cash currently being printed. This is the relationship of bank credit to real money. All the assets bought with our $800 of bank credit are actually worth only $10 in real money despite the valuations placed on them by banks.

As we've said before, when you need more real money because you can't sell your assets for what you say they are worth they are not worth what you say they are. This is the reality of a liquidity crunch. These assets are not worth what the banks say they are in terms of currency, never mind real money.

Whilst Bernanke et al might try to minimise these losses to the banks by printing and devaluing money they cannot alter their real value which is 1 oz of gold at whatever price in currency; they can only succeed in lowering the value of cash in terms of real money which is a problem for the masses who receive payment for their labour in cash.

Even if Bernanke et al were to print 5 times as much money so as to increase the perceived value of our $800 of bank credit to $50 in cash that $50 is still only worth 1 oz of gold. That’s what a gold standard is, the revaluation of everything in real money, not the explosive quantities of cash currently being printed.

It is the revaluation of assets in the real money which underpins the cash, and for 5,000 years that real money has been gold.

This is the reason why we say that the supply of cash absolutely MUST increase and that every option MUST be exhausted by government before bond markets are allowed to default. It is the reason why the discount window at the Fed exists in the first place, why its dealings remain a closely guarded secret and why we now need a taxpayer funded guarantee of bank deposits just to keep the system going. It is the reason why neither TARP, QE2, QE3, 4, 5 or even 26 can possibly resolve it and we say that there is zero possibility of any sustainable economic recovery being built atop it. Simple maths dictates that it just isn’t possible. '

Government is constantly trying to find a way to have unlimited creation of currency (Euros, FRNs [Federal Reserve Notes]) and credit without inflation, unlimited spending and deficits without economic ruin, unlimited national debtwithout repayment, and unlimited growth of power and plunder (regulation and taxation) without revolt.

They can no more halve things and get the sensual good, by itself, than we can get an inside that shall have no outside, or a light without a shadow.

No one will see the logic of what you've posted as long as their paycheck(s) depend on NOT seeing it.

Cheer up there are just as many calling the double top. Don't know which way this goes but I lose if it doesn't go up big. It will be educational to see. Was expecting a rise between Mar expiry and the end-of-month but I see I completely forgot about quarterlies. The good part about ignorance is if you collect enough of it you get back to coin flipping odds which is better than being a sheep following the voice of the shearer. lol

redstuffer that's good until someone defaults on your position, which is the ultimate end game for this market. How long it takes I have no idea in a manipulated market but when all went mildly pear shaped in August 2007 we were happy that we were holding physical at that time.

Without Goldmans $13 billion TARP bailout, (or was it $30B) there would certainly have been uproar in derivatives positions. Better safe than sorry I say, I can fore go the intermittent gains because I'm contented with the long term appreciation...

I'm in Shanghai at the moment. I can tell you that the story is 100% correct. Some dealers even tell me that I have to wait for 3 months to have my gold bars delivered. However, silver bars seem quite available here.

You may be right, ORI. Even to a PM bull, this story smells fishy. For example, I was always under the impression silver (moon metal) was the preferred PM in China both historically and culturally. I could be wrong, but that was my impression.

China is still outsmarting the west. They see the structural flaws in the fiat system and are simply trying to take control over as many raw materials and grow as much infrastructure as they can while the game is still on. If that includes building "ghost towns" to keep their industry active then so be it.

Don't listen to ORI, if anything, use him as a contrarian indicator. Track his posts, he's made tons of 'predictions' (including dates) all of which have failed miserably. When he has been called-out on them in the past, he tries to blame someone else. He's a douche-sack and he just likes to make controversial statements on ZH to push his website. Disregard him completely.

Then why this stupid call from a blog • gold pro ........ ? Hes been trading futures / options for years he knows about the derivatives he cry's about them after every bad call , over and over and over like a broken 45 '

............... So, here's my promise to you. Gold will trade at $1600 on or before 6/10/11. If I'm wrong, I'm shutting down this blog and going away, never to be heard from again as I will have proven myself to be of little value. If I'm right...well, let's just say it would be perfectly appropriate for you to hit the "Feed The Turd" button every day for the rest of your life. " ............................

I refer you to my response to a recent article on interest rates and gold.

'This idea that gold prices are linked to interest rates is complete and utter bollocks. The gold price was rising in 1971 because the US had already been printing too many dollars, even under a gold standard. Most CB 's at the time were sending their export dollars back to the Fed almost immediately apart from the French, who had been stockpiling for some time.

When De Gaulle attempted to exchange his stockpile of dollars for gold Nixon shut the window. At that time the world was effectively saying' show us your gold backing' which had Nixon got he would have shown because as we all know, no politician can resist a political edge if its free, and doing so would most certainly have calmed the worlds fears about inadequate gold backing of dollars.

We can only deduce from this that the US didn't have sufficient gold to back its dollars, and that's as far back as 1971...

It matters not that interest rates rose upto 1980, the only reason the gold price collapsed subsequently was because of the introduction of the Washington Agreement which effectively released every CB from the need to convert foreign currency (read export dollars) to gold. Now they convert export dollars to a US T Bill or Euro bond etc so there is no demand for gold or sale of dollars. It was this collapse in demand from CB's which led to a collapse in gold prices as they became net sellers instead of buyers.

It was entirely a short term manipulation which is now over.

The Asian currency pegs created an artificial strong dollar economy in which wages didn't increase as they should which in turn resulted in credit based asset bubbles as the US Govt tried to make Americans wealthy through asset appreciation instead of net earnings. The only consequence was that Americans eventually 'spent up' using too much of a static take home pay to service mortgages and credit card debt. At that point the dollar began to fall because Greenspan/Bernanke knew that the only way they could replay the same game was for Americans to earn more money and take on more debt. That means lower dollars and higher inflation in a world geared up for inflexible exchange rates and exports to an economy gone bang. Lowering interest rates has got nothing to do with rising gold. If it did we would all have some and clearly we don't.

The gold price is rising because more people are concerned about the value of their money. We will soon see an environment where interest rates are rising in conjunction with the rising gold price.

The fact is that gold prices dictate interest rates, not the converse, because when gold is in money I don't need to invest or save it in banks. I can choose to do nothing, which means that the banks have to tempt me with yield to get me to give it up. I am everyone, I am Joe Public the world over.

Interest rates are entirely false. The introduction of the Washington Agreement should be recorded in history as the greatest manipulation of financial and commodity markets ever by anyone and anything. That manipulation must now be taken out, which means higher rates, higher gold, lower housing, less credit and higher food.

An absolute disaster by any means that was entirely avoidable, thanks Greenspan & Bernanke et al for nothing. We would have been and will be better off without you.

'Watch for signs that the second great gold bull market in history is about to begin.'

Hmmm.. Well done Lear Capital, you're about 10 years late with that one...'

Must battle the doomer sect .... Can't let the misinformation get out of hand, if Turd didn't spam ZH for months with his blog links ( searching for fiat returns ) I would never post about his hypocrisy, but since he did, it's open season on his snake oil ....

When buying, Miller also likes to strike quickly and he expects the same when he's selling. "I don't haggle much over the price," he admits. "I don't beat the owner up over one of the stove elements or something when I'm trying to buy a property. I'm trying to sell a condominium right now that will make me a $200,000 gain in 11 months and this buyer is dinking me around 'cause he thinks the roof might have to be replaced in a couple years. So he's gonna lose a fair deal there in the Village. Do you think I'm gonna replace the roof? If we were in a depressed market, maybe, but [I'm thinking] 'next!'"

-"Un-Real Estate" by Jake Nichols, on Planet Jackson Hole.

Mozilo reached out to borrowers as part of a "little experiment" to understand the reasoning behind making only minimum payments on so-called pay-option loans, a practice that boosts the total amount due, the 67-year-old CEO told investors Wednesday in New York.

"What we're finding out is that they're pretty smart," Mozilo said. "It's like voters: Individually they're sort of idiots, but collectively they seem to make the right decisions."

'Assuming that we are 100 in number and we each have a house valued at $1 then the entire housing market would be valued at $100 in total on a mark to market basis, but if I were to now borrow $20 and start buying houses for $2 each, then other homeowners will anticipate that the resale value of their own homes had risen to $2 because that would be the current market rate. That's what "mark to market" is, right?

Financial markets would perceive a fair and realisable value on a “mark to market” basis to be 100 houses at $2 each, a $200 market. The problem is that the total investment in our housing market remains at only $120. So where did the other $80 come from?

The fact is that property speculators just perceived 80 non existent dollars from somewhere which don't appear on the balance sheet of any bank, anywhere, yet. Now this might not seem important but if you are subject to a wealth tax or property taxes or a local rates system which relies on a market based property value then you can see an obvious problem; you have no control over your tax liabilities, however, we digress...

The problem is that an independent valuation from an industry professional declaring a market value of $2 is normally sufficient for the borrower to be considered a prime borrower with collateral and we can now go and obtain a credit rating, be it prime, sub-prime, AAA, BB-, they come in all different flavours.

The problems arise when speculators try to spend their 80 dollars on something of value because as soon as I stop buying houses the collateral disappears and the homeowners who took loans against the magically increased equity in their homes are left with the debt and just like the banks, no collateral.

The real problem is that with interest rates at just 1%, and a forced sale valuation as high as 60% LTV, it takes 40 good loans to offset the loss from just one default. The simple truth is that house prices can only continue to rise for as long as new buyers continue to enter the market or interest rates can be lowered to encourage existing homeowners to move up market, a very finite alternative which ends when interest rates hit zero, or thereabouts.

The reality is that if we are to put a roof over the heads of our children then we have little choice but to become embroiled in this system. It's easy to become intoxicated with perpetually rising property prices, after all anyone can make fortunes speculating in these markets when the future of the economy and the tax revenues which are derived from it rely so heavily on continually rising prices. The problem is that it all ends when interest rates hit zero, because at that point everyone wants toknow "where in this accounting fiction is the real money? '

Well, where is it, because it looks like governments various are now desperately scrambling to invent it...

When you "mark to market" when prices are going up it's like manna from heaven, but when prices are going down things can become dangerously barren on the balance sheet.

Capitalism is supposed to work in both directions. But in the US we profit on the upside and either hide our losses through accounting gimmicks or ask for a bailout on the downside. This ain't capitalism.

I doubt they would even tell you. My old lady doesn't know shit about my gold and silver stash I started a few years ago. People that actually own physical don't tell people about it-even their best friends and family. People that own GLD and SLV tell the world. Big difference.

I agree with you though that many people are chasing returns, albeit in the ETF's I mentioned. I seriously hope they get flushed out, along with every other 'speculator.' I want physical buyers leading the rally so we have true price discovery.

can you please define exactly who all the idiots buying are??? Nobody in my family, nobody I work with ...i know nobody that owns any gold... or that is planning on buying gold...or even knows the spot price of gold... If it is so over bought people wouldn't people be bragging how great it is to own gold over lattes at starbucks... So once again who is buying the gold?

There is no bubble, you have to have J6P piling into physical PM's before their can be a bubble, what we have is a manipulated (to the downside market), that would be at $1600.00 rignt now, and Slvr would already have hit $50.00 easily.

I posted some silver bullion for sale on Facebook the other day and of the 250 people that I'm connected to, only two people commented, and found it funny and asked why in the world I have silver bullion. It's a youngish crowd, early 30's, but still...

Gold has to crash for the elites so they can buy it at lower prices. That's why the MSM is full of disinformation. Even if the 23000 tonnes is a misprint, the demand in Asia is definitely overwhelming current supply (and China is the largest gold producer worldwide).

Traders, obviously, will be hurt on corrections. For those of us long term "estate" holders, corrections will be just another buying opportunity.

You raise the ultimate question. When to sell. The only reason to sell in this age of infinite fiat is when an alternative of wealth preservation arises. Perhaps a gold-backed currency out of Asia, perhaps a Pan-Asian gold currency. Productive farmland? Otherwise, as you say, best to trade the cycles of the paper trade and leave a core in tact.

I am in China every two months and have seen the gold demand personally. One needs to keep in mind that on the best-selling book list there,still, is the book series Currency Wars, in Chinese only unfortunately, wherein the author lays out the history of fiat money. They are much more educated on wealth creation and preservation than the inbred, fluoride-head Americans such as Spalding, etc. who think that debt is money.

A few producers of silver are now marketing their own brand thus capturing premiums and reducing the supply to comex. I think we will soon see gold producers marketing their own brand of bulllion thus capturing the rising premiums and reducing supply to the manipulators. This business model will result in result in higher profits than leasing production into the future.

NWTM is a sketchy outfit that is notorious for late delivery, and is by no means a good market indicator. Not sure why people buy from them given that the internet is full of complaints about their ethics and repeated late deliveries. Must be good prices.

Why must all you gold bears hang around here and stir the pot? It's quite sad that you don't have an intelligent group of your peers aligned with your views at another blog that you could converse with constructively. It's okay to disagree, but all this lame back and forth when you hijack a thread makes it like watching an Obama speech. Blah, blah, blah.

What a sorry-ass bunch of fucking cry-babies, curl-up in a ball and die will ya! Reading some of these childish whimpers about Gold and Silver loosing some didgits along the way are making me sick as all fuck...back to basics we go...while the paper debts accumulate, while the printing press's turn-out tomorrows toilet paper, while CB's are bailing like mother fuckers, while we're burning 85M B of Oil a day because we lost the use of our legs, and while people around the world are shooting each other over tomorrows toilet paper, everyone should be buying PMs hand over fist.

When the music stops because the Dukebox takes thousand dollar notes only, don't start fucking crying on-line because you got scared or distracted by the little ups and downs a year or two ago...stick to common sense.

Mates of mine come back from business trips to China; they say those fuckers know they've won. Confidence in China is amped. They're buying anything they can hold in their hands because the dumb white fucker likes toilet paper. Old Chinese saying: Make your first fortune in Gold.

This shit couldn't get any more fucking simple, even for a trading dumb fuck like me. PMs aren't about buying dips and selling highs, right now PMs are about buying dips only. Pay-day comes when countries that lend realise that countries that borrow are a lost cause. When creditor countries start trading in their own currencies, and when debtor countries can't keep consuming.

Please don't make me post the 'BTFD' video, for fuck sake!

Actually, fuck-it, I take it all back...go ahead, sell your shit...make it cheaper for me!